


Xenophilius Lovegood and the Ravenclaw Scarf

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-29 10:57:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He tried to imagine a whole term of silence – no dreamy little voice beside him at the breakfast table telling stories about the bowtruckle family in the garden or how she was sure she'd almost seen a crumple-horned snorkack hiding behind Amos Diggory's barn – and wondered for the thousandth time whether he knew enough to teach her at home instead. She wouldn't have to bother with Arithmancy or Quidditch or Astronomy or any of that rubbish; he could teach her about plants and animals and conspiracies instead, and they could travel the world together seeking new species, seeking truths..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Xenophilius Lovegood and the Ravenclaw Scarf

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kurgaya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurgaya/gifts).



There was a dreadful sort of selfishness settling in the bottom of Xeno's stomach, like when you drink your tea too quickly before it's cooled and the warmth is just enough to be unpleasant. He couldn't help spinning ideas in his head, huge elaborate horrible schemes to keep Luna where she was and not send her away to school ( _you could make her ill, just a little bit, just until they stop asking where she is_ ), and despised himself for it, abandoning the thoughts at once to a locked little desperate place inside him so there was nothing left but their echoes.

The house was quiet, had been for two interminable years. Back then Xeno couldn't bear the noise sometimes, the cracks and bangs and hissing potions and shrieking experimental spells, and he'd enchant his ears shut or pad the room with layers of muffling charms so he could write in peace; but now, the deathly stillness of the house when Luna was asleep and Xeno wandered it alone was only broken by the movement in photographs and the occasional flitting moth beating its wings against the lamps, and the silence was suffocating. He tried to imagine a whole term of it – no dreamy little voice beside him at the breakfast table telling stories about the bowtruckle family in the garden or how she was sure she'd almost seen a crumple-horned snorkack hiding behind Amos Diggory's barn – and wondered for the thousandth time whether he knew enough to teach her at home instead. She wouldn't have to bother with Arithmancy or Quidditch or Astronomy or any of that rubbish, or have to navigate the other children's predictable cruelty; he could teach her about plants and animals and conspiracies instead, and they could travel the world together seeking new species, seeking truths...

"Hello."

He stopped pacing the corridor and hesitated, then nudged gently at Luna's bedroom door so the soft glow of the lamp illuminated her face in a long golden stripe. She was sitting up in bed, heavy-lidded with sleep but looking at him expectantly in a way that always melted his heart, so he left the door open behind him and went to sit on the edge of her bed, tucking a wispy strand of loose hair behind her ear.

"Hello yourself. You should be asleep."

"We'd both be asleep if you weren't plodding up and down outside my bedroom door."

"Perhaps."

"You're upset I'm going to school."

It wasn't a question, it didn't need to be. She knew him better than anyone, and he couldn't lie to her, so he just nodded his head glumly and looked down at his hands in his lap.

"Why? You said there's nothing in the world as important as knowledge and truth."

"There's _one_ thing more important."

Luna was quiet for a moment after that, then he felt the lurch of the mattress as she clambered out from beneath the covers to hug him. She was cold in his arms, tiny bones like a bird's, shivering in the cool night air. The sensible thing would be to tuck her back into bed, draw the crocheted patchwork blanket close up under her chin, murmur a quick charm to warm the room as she drifted back to sleep, but instead on a whim he said _accio scarf_ – and his old school scarf, his blue and gold Ravenclaw scarf with the ragged chewed fringe and the off-colour patches of darning and his name tape still stitched crookedly at one end, wound its way into Luna's bedroom from Xeno's wardrobe like a dancing serpent and tucked itself around her neck, tying itself into a neat knot and then going still.

"This is the only thing I've still got from school," he said, winding one long end around her shoulders again. "You'll get your own tomorrow, of course, when you're sorted into a house, but for now... it's seen an awful lot, you know, this scarf."

And then suddenly the memories came, an exhilarating release, tripping out of his mouth and into the world after two years of terrible silence:

"Your mum cursed my hair white once for not returning a book to the library after she'd reserved it, it's never really been the same since. I looked like Merlin, I had to wrap my head up in my scarf and run off to find someone to change me back. And after I finally convinced her to forgive me and come out walking by the lake one night it started raining so hard we could barely see, and I thought I'd try being romantic and impress her but instead of casting a water repelling charm like a normal boy I transfigured my scarf into an umbrella, this great ridiculous blue and bronze canopy on a stick, but wool doesn't do much against rain, you know, and then I got a chill from all the water pouring down my collar and spent the next week drinking vile potions trying to stop myself from sneezing. And when you were a baby... you were so impatient to see the world you came early, nearly two weeks early, and we were too afraid to apparate to the hospital with your mum in the middle of giving birth so you were born right next door in our bedroom, and you were so tiny and so beautiful, you had the biggest bluest eyes we'd ever seen, and we wrapped you up in a towel and then because it was cold we put this scarf around you too and that's how you went to the hospital, you and your mum sharing a scarf and me fumbling around trying to find a camera. I never did find it, not until we got home again, but I won't forget that day if I live to be three hundred."

She was breathing slowly and barely listening, Xeno realised, hovering on the brink of sleep with her little fingers curled against his chest. The loops of the scarf – better than a journal, better than a pensieve – held her like a hug even when he laid her back against the pillows and stood up, crossing the room to where the door was still ajar and turning there to look back at her.

"I'll miss you too," she said in a yawning little murmur, and Xeno smiled even though she was too drowsy to see it and quietly closed the door.

*

In the morning when they took a portkey to King's Cross for the Hogwarts train, Luna wore her father's shabby old school scarf proudly and when people laughed or gave her funny looks or asked what she'd do if the hat sorted her into Gryffindor instead she just stared back serenely until they stopped. She was warm, and she smelled of home; they could laugh as much as they wanted. 

In her empty compartment, wrapped in the scarf, she opened the newest copy of the Quibbler to an article about crumple-horned snorkack sightings in eastern Scotland, and settled down happily for the journey.


End file.
